DRK Buff/Rework - Thoughts?

[kashi11]

DRK rework just for fun. My goals were to increase both mitigation and damage, to create more interesting choices for Dark Arts usage with additional skill effects and to create better raid synergy with Trick Attack windows, and create an identity through party utility that differed from both PLD and WAR and favored caster party compositions.

Please let me know your thoughts and give me any feedback, I threw this together pretty quickly and haven't crunched the numbers yet.

EDIT: Just crunched the numbers, my changes account to about a 31 pps buff to DRK, I'm not sure how far behind they currently are

Syphon Strike

• Dark Arts Potency has been removed

Notes:~20 pps nerf

Blood Weapon

• Recast time has been reduced to 30s

Note: +/- 0 pps

Blood Price

• Duration has been increased to 30s
• Recast time has been increased to 60s

EDIT: I did my math wrong here, target uptime should be 35%, Duration should be set to 21s


Souleater

• The effect “Absorbs a portion of damage dealt as HP” is no longer a Grit Combo Bonus and has been changed to a Darkside Combo Bonus

Dark Passenger

• The effect “Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to all enemies in a straight line before you,” has been changed to “Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 and unaspected damage over time to all enemies in a straight line before you. Damage over time potency is reduced by 20% for the second enemy, 40% for the third, 60% for the fourth, and 80% for all remaining enemies.”
• Damage over time potency: 80
• Duration: 15s
• The Dark Arts Effect “Blind” has been changed to “Lower’s targets damage dealt by 10%”
• Duration: 15s

Note: Total potency equals 500 for first enemy, 420 for second enemy, 340 for third enemy, 260 for fourth enemy, and 180 for all remaining enemies
Note: ~13 pps buff single target


Dark Mind

• The effect “Reduces magic vulnerability by 15%” has been changed to “Reduces damage taken by 10% and delivers an attack with a potency of 50 every time damage is suffered”
• The duration has been increased from 10s to 15s
• The additional effect “Increases targets magic vulnerability by 3%” has been added
• Duration: 4s
• The Dark Arts Effect “Increases magic vulnerability reduction to 30%” has been changed to “Increases damage reduction to 20%”
• The recast time has increased from 60s to 90s

Note: ~5 pps buff single target assuming 5 hits in 15s

Shadow Wall

• The effect “Reduces damage taken by 30%” has been changed to “Reduces damage taken by 30% while preventing most knockback and draw-in effects”
• The additional effect “ Nullifies the chance of suffering critical damage” has been added.

Living Dead

• The Walking Dead status effect has changed from “Most attacks will not lower your HP below 1” to “ you are impervious to most attacks and HP absorbing effects will be doubled”

Plunge

• Potency has been reduced from 200 to 100.
• Range has been increased from 15y to 20y

Note: ~3% pps nerf
Note: Animation lock reduced to match other gap closers

Sole Survivor

• The effect “ Marks target with the status Another Victim. If that target should be KO'd in battle, 20% of your maximum HP and MP will be restored” has been changed to “ Grants healing over time to self and increases magical damage dealt by self and by nearby party members by 7%”
• Cure Potency: 240
• Duration: 15s
• The additional effect “Refresh” has been added.
• Refresh Potency: 100
• Duration: 15s

Note: Total heal over time potency 1200 or ~20% of maximum HP
Note: Refresh potency equates to 1200 MP per tick, or half a dark arts per tick - totaling 50% mana or 2.5 Dark Arts in 15s
Note: ~3% pps buff

Carve and Spit

• An MP cost of 2400 has been added
• The effect “Delivers a threefold attack with a potency of 100. Also restores MP if used while not under the effect of Dark Arts” has been changed to “Delivers a threefold attack, each hit with a potency of 150.”
• Dark Arts Potency has been removed
• The Dark Arts Effect “Increases Blood Gauge by 50” has been added.

Note: ~4% pps buff

Delirium

• The Additional Effect “Extends Blood Weapon and Blood Price effects by 8s and 16s respectively” has been changed to “ Halves the cost of Blood Gauge actions and guarantees that all attacks enhanced by Dark Arts are critical and direct hits”
• Duration 14s
• The recast time has been increased from 80s to 120s

Note: Can fit about 6 GCD in a 14 second window, 5 Bloodspillers under Blood Weapon are possible + 1 Souleater, possible to get 6 Bloodspillers under Blood Weapon and Salted Earth
Note: This should work out to ~ 28 pps buff in the first case and ~30 pps buff in the second case

[Ekimmak]

A knockback protection I can agree with... not sure I like it being tied into the strongest of DRK's defensive cooldowns.

[Silver_Blade]

Blood price 50% uptime is too much. Reduce to 20 seconds or increase CD to 80.
Dark passenger damage scaling is way too severe. Use the same as other AoE. 10-20-30-40 and cap at 50% for all remaining.N
No way all that makes it through. Lose the magic vulnerability debuff to target and it's more realistic or drop counter down to 25.
Living dead OP without CD increase. Or make it still can't fall below 1 and health absorb triplied.
Sole survivor OP as hell. Lose the refresh and drop the regen to 150.
Delirium so you just want them to give us berserk and inner release? Not gonna happen man. You are just trying to make DRK into warrior and just as OP

We don't need to be OP we just need to have something to make us worth having. Yeah these would be amazing but we would be de facto #1 which just causes more problems.

[Valdegarde]

I think I'd be more on-board with the Syphon Strike, Souleater, Living Dead, and possibly Plunge changes if it also nixed Plunge's ridiculous animation lock. I have no idea how Shoulder Tackle and Onslaught continue to be quick as hell and 20 yalms while Plunge is so clunky.
I think it'd be cool for Carve and Spit to really be a "threefold" attack like Dream Within a Dream, as it would give more blood and MP under blood weapon. A small little buff consideration.
But the rest to me either feels too similar to Warrior, a bit too powerful, or both.

Knockback protection...I'm not sure why something like that couldn't be tied to Awareness or something instead of Paladin getting it for free.

[Silver_Blade]

I think all our problems could be solved with 1 change.
Make sole survivor inflict "5% increase in damage taken" and "5% increased vulnerability to critical strike" for 15 seconds
and MAYBE add Heals attackers for 5% of damage dealt. Maybe make it apply only if DA'd

I would still also like to see
Dark Mind: Heal for 5% of all damage dealt. Dark Mind increases to 10%
This would give the CD use against melee enemies and fill the defense deficit we currently have.
These two changes could reverse the entire situation.

I just still can't understand how SE could miss the mark so badly with 4.2 Everyone knows DRK is broken but the changes they made did nothing to address the issue of our lack of utility or defensive weakness. It didn't even address our low dps as it is less than a 1% buff..........I mean do they even care the players are so unhappy?

[Ekimmak]

Shadow Nail: Ability, 150 second cooldown.

Place a shadow nail at your location for 10 seconds and tether to it. You are immune to most knockback and draw-in effects. Moving more than 10 yalms from the nail ends the buff early and refreshes the cooldown on Plunge.

[whiskeybravo]

Was thinking about this last night: Dark Mind should be a 30 sec buff with 90 sec CD. I believe that would make it a legit CD for magic bosses. Even I'd seriously consider switching to it for those boss types. Maybe just re-tune the % a bit, not sure, 30% for 30 sec would be strong but also have to figure in the DA cost.. I think 30% for 30 sec would be a good cost/benefit, but if it's too strong maybe drop it to like 10% / 20% instead of 15/30

[shao32]

dont keep dark mind DA cost, is a complety dps lost and dark mind+TBN its a lot better

[whiskeybravo]

dark mind+TBN its a lot better

Well, because it's only a 10-sec buff mainly so you're really only using for one attack (tank busters).. As I mentioned, I think it the trick is making the cost/benefit worth it. It's clearly not at 10 sec, but at 30 sec it becomes a lot more worthy of consideration IMO because it's covering a lot more incoming damage (from magic bosses). Just a thought, doesn't "fix" DRK by itself but does give it more of the designated magic-tank feel. And if you just want to use it for a single tankbuster with TBN instead of DA it's basically the same as before, just lasts longer. Simple change that should be seriously considered if they aren't going to change it to all-purpose damage reduction. Dark Mind undoubtedly needs to be better, one way or the other.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

Crave and Spit having a bloody cost is not what we need and is just as crazy as suggesting Dark Arts TBN.
No one is going to blow 4,800 MP on damage or a party shield, its just not cost effective.